The Art of Content Marketing

Summary

The ultimate guide to using Visual Content to grow your creative business. (Second Edition)This book shows you how to develop a system for long term business success. Use your blog, email and website and visual content to grow your creative business. Develop Your content strategy, create compelling visual and written content, distribute the content and measure results. Packed with resources you can try today.Artists, writers, photographers and all creative entrepreneurs often fail to plan their marketing. This book shows you practical steps to boost your business with visual content. Build your authority, find your audience and deliver great value to your market.Based on the author's own experience with his fine art business. What to try and what to avoid. A big picture view that will help you boost your content marketing today.

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The Art of Content Marketing - Malcolm Dewey

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Introduction

Why Content Marketing for Creatives?

Let me start with a true story:

One day I was busy drawing a cartoon at home. I was about six years old at the time. My mother was having tea with a friend, who happened to look over at my drawing. My mom’s friend was impressed with my efforts and suggested that I go to art school in the afternoons. She made quite a fuss about it, but I was stubborn about one thing. No way was I going to spend more time at school even if it was an art class!

I did enjoy the attention, though. People were amused by my drawings and it gave my ego a boost. A big part of my free time went into drawing. A sketch book and pencils were my constant companions. This was back in the early seventies with no television in our country yet. Being an only child I had plenty of time to focus on creating.

Anyway fast forward to high school and career selections. Oh boy, I was not interested in maths. Trades were not my thing either. Back then careers were either trades, sales or a traditional profession. Art was a quick trip to drugs and starvation. It was a conservative time!

I was determined to investigate a career in art, but career advisers steered me away from fine art. Unless I wanted to be a teacher of course. Nope. The best offer seemed to be textile design and fashion design. I could not see that happening either. I took up book learning instead. This meant law school. So it was that I graduated after five years of university as an attorney. Yes I did take the safe option, but my time would come.

My First Content Marketing Experience in the Art World

I still painted at every opportunity. I was identified by my varsity mates as the artist. If someone needed a drawing done, a logo designed or even a residence t-shirt design they would ask me.

Sometime during this early period, I listened to a radio interview with a popular local artist. Turns out this artist was also an attorney and had left the profession to pursue fine art full time. I was floored by this. Wow! How did he make ends meet? Give up law for art! I think a seed of possibility was planted there and then.

A few years later, during the early 1990’s, my wife and I visited the famous Grahamstown Arts Fest. One of the art exhibitions was by a local artist called Dale Elliott. This artist was also a former attorney who have packed it in for full time painting. I am convinced it was the same artist I heard on the interview. We purchased a large print, which was all we could afford at the time. I still have that print in my studio.

I did not appreciate it then, but that radio interview I listened to and the poster that we purchased were all forms of content marketing. All pre-internet of course.

Going Pro

Fast forward about twenty years. With my wife’s encouragement, I decided to take on the professional painting challenge. Although my paintings were popular I was only selling at markets and a few online at low prices. I had an idea in my head that I could only justify going pro if I could also make a respectable living as an artist. Fair or not. I had some mental baggage and I did not want to look like a hobby artist out of his depth.

In about five years I turned the corner and I can say that I am on a solid professional base as an artist. I tried many things in the marketing line and worked hard at improving my painting.

What was the key to making a success?

Did a top gallery approach me with a great deal? Did a wealthy collector undertake to sponsor my career? Nope. None of the traditional ideas for fine art success. Times had changed. We were also in the middle of a worldwide economic collapse.

The keys to my change in fortune was taking responsibility for my business career and content marketing.

You see the problem for us artists is that we are raised to think that others will make our careers. If you want to write for a living then a publisher will have to give you permission to succeed. If you want to paint then an influential gallery, a museum or a state-sponsored grant would be the ticket to wealth. Photographers need a prominent magazine or fashion house contract. These rationalizations will keep you stuck forever.

Any of those traditional routes can mean success for a few, but for the rest of us? Day jobs and art on the weekends will be the likeliest outcome. Now I know that I am generalizing to a degree to make a point. But that was the world I faced in the 80’s and 90’s.

In the new millennium, things started to loosen up with the internet. However only from about 2005 did the writing appear on the wall thanks to Facebook and other social channels. (Sorry about the little wall pun) Then the rise of blogging, email and the masses of apps and mobile.

Suddenly creative people can take charge of their careers and make things happen without deferring to gatekeepers.

The Problem?

Those limitations I spoke of still have a hold on many artists. Consequently far too many artists sell themselves short when it comes to marketing. These artists suffer financially and start to doubt themselves. Others make a small living and wait for their big break. Someone will notice them and their career will take off. Maybe Oprah or some other movie star will endorse them. Is that a plan?

Some believe that social media will make all the difference. Yes, social media is vibrant, fun and it can be exciting when a post goes viral.

But on its own it is like collecting water with your hands. It all spills away. There is so much more to pick up, but sadly it spills away again. Frustrating.

Social media is not content marketing. Putting up posts on these channels is not, of itself, enough. Waiting to win the social lotto is not a plan for success. To take advantage of the opportunities that the internet provides requires a plan.

Often creatives shy away from words like strategy, planning, mission statement and so on. I was guilty of that in the past. Not anymore. I want to show you why strategy can make a difference in your business too. More on that in Part One.

This book will take you along the creative process where excellent content is brought to life, shared and measured. Your content will help bring your business out of the shadow and into the forefront where it deserves to be. The beauty of it all is that content marketing is not ephemeral. It is a long-term system that will support your goals for years to come.

Let's get started!

Chapter One

What is Content Marketing?

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.

—Debbi Fields

Content marketing is a requirement for every good business today. Marketing has of course been around for a long time. Now the internet is part of our life and has become a massive part of content marketing. A vast empowering force that has given you and I the opportunity to do extraordinary things. The potential seems to be limited only by our imaginations. But content marketing also requires us to take action otherwise we could miss out on this potential. First off let us make sure that we understand what content marketing is.

According to the Content Marketing Institute it is defined as:

"Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action"

That is a formal definition that sounds a bit daunting. Especially to artists and other creatives who dislike the idea of sales and anything corporate. But let us look at that definition again:

Marketing and Business: This reminds you that as an entrepreneur you need to marketyour business to see it thrive;

Process: You need a system that works well for you repeatedly;

Creating and distributing: Your efforts to create and publish content is required. It is work that remains part of your business.

Relevant and Valuable Content: Content that is relevant to your audience (fans, customers and clients) and provides value to them.

Attract, Acquire and engage: Only excellent content will meet these requirements.

Profitable Customer Action: What this action is depends on your business needs and strategy. But you will need to know what this outcome is before you make content.

That sounds like a hurdle to climb. Is it all worth it?

There is a simpler way to understand what your content is all about.

In essence you produce useful content that people find entertaining, useful or interesting. Over time this builds trust and authority for your business.

At some point these people will trust you with their email address, they will share your content and support your business because they love what you do.

One day they will also purchase your product.

This makes content marketing a powerful way to grow your business. It is also quite unlike any other kind of marketing.

Why The Art of Content Marketing Anyway?

This book is for creative entrepreneurs who are looking for answers. The answers to:

Why they are not reaching their financial goals.

Why their business remains unknown despite their work being so good.

What direction to go when there are so many options.

This book aims to help creatives like artists, writers, photographers and the many others who are producing great work, but cannot break out to find their audience.

This book seeks to challenge the outdated ideas that hold many creative people back. The ideas that lead to fear, second guessing and deference to gatekeepers.

This book will show you the link between an excellent business, entrepreneurship and content marketing. It will show you a proven system for content marketing that works over the long term. A system without sleazy sales pitches and hard sell tactics.

Ultimately I want this book to show YOU that content marketing is worth the effort. And equip you with the knowledge to start your content marketing system. Then to inspire you into taking action!

Content Marketing is Not:

Content marketing has an honourable purpose too. Unfortunately, many people want to take a shortcut or try black hat tactics to get results quickly. In case a few people out there are still not sure where the lines are let’s look at what content is not:

Content marketing is not a get rich quick scheme;

It is not Search Engine Optimization tricks;

It is not viral sharing tricks;

It is not about spending wads of cash on advertising;

It is not social media;

It is not avoiding your real work,

It is not misleading people.

I prefer to look at the positive side and focus on developing a fantastic business with excellent content. This book will show you many ways to create excellent content in an ethical manner. Most people will recognize the above tactics and reject them. Reputation is all important. Protect yours.

The world needs better content:

The world of content marketing is filled with opinions, advice and noise. There is a good chance that your inbox has content arriving in it each day seeking your attention. You may have subscribed to